1. Technical Field
This invention relates generally to portable electronic devices having reminder or to-do lists, and more particularly to a portable communication device having soft-keys configurable as to create one-click reminders in a reminder list in response to incoming communications or interrupt events.
2. Background Art
Multi-tasking is often seen as a requirement in modern society. With ever increasing demands for a person's time, it seems today that unless multiple tasks are being performed simultaneously, there is simply not enough time in the day to get everything done. Consequently, people are often doing two things at once. When trying to complete two tasks simultaneously, it is easy to focus on completing one task while forgetting to complete the other.
This is especially true in the world of interpersonal communication. Not too long ago people had only a simple telephone with no answering machine. When someone called, if the recipient was home and available, they accepted the call. If they were not home, or were not available, the caller would simply call back.
Today, however, people often carry sophisticated communication devices having telephone functionality, text and multimedia messaging capability, e-mail capability, and Internet access. While this added functionality is convenient, it can come the price of constant availability to others. A recipient today may receive text messages from a first person, e-mail messages from a second person, telephone calls from a third person, and so forth. It is not uncommon for multiple communications to arrive simultaneously. In most cases, all of these communications are received by a single electronic device. Responding to these communications can be a frazzling experience.
One problem associated with prior art devices is that they are generally only configured to process one communication event at a time. For example, if a user is typing a text message to a first party, and a telephone call comes in from a second party, the user has two choices: the user can accept the call and lose the text message, or the user can continue the text message and miss the call. If the user chooses the first option, the user must remember to return to the text messaging application to complete the correspondence with the first party. If the user chooses the latter option, the user must remember to return to the telephony application to call the second party back. If the user forgets to do either, a variety of problematic conditions can arise—the user may miss an important communication or engagement, a particular party may be offended by the user's delayed response or lack of response, and so forth.
There is thus a need for an improved communication device that assists people in remembering interrupted communications.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.